A number of techniques are known to those of skill in the art for saving references to content items. One example is a bookmark control available by most popular web browsers. A user utilizes a web browser to view content items, including content items available over a network, such as the Internet. When the user navigates to a content item to which he or she wishes to save a reference, the user utilizes a bookmark control from the web browser to save a reference to the content item. For example, where a given content item is identified by an address, such as a URL, the browser saves a local reference to the content item that includes the address of the content item. When the user subsequently wishes to view the content item, the user may select the locally saved reference to the content item, which causes the browser to retrieve the content item that the address identifies.
In some cases, a user may wish to organize references to content items by grouping together references to like content items. For example, a user may wish to group references to media files, such as video files. A user may wish to associate personally meaningful descriptors with various video files. One example of a technique for grouping references is to utilize a bookmark control in a browser to group bookmarks according to personally meaningful descriptors, such as organizing bookmarks into various folders. For example, a user may create a folder of bookmarks with the name “funny videos” and use it to store references to video files that the user deems funny. In some cases, a user may wish to search for specific types of content items matching certain criteria. For example, a user may wish to search for “funny videos.” A user may use an algorithmic search engine to search for funny videos at one or more disparate sites. However, algorithmic search engines may not have any way of determining whether specific video files are in fact funny.
A number of techniques are known to those of skill in the art for saving references to content items and in particular to content items with updated content drawn from multiple disparate sources. One example is using web feeds. Web feeds may be used to share the most recent headlines or latest entries in a blog, the full text of news articles and blog entries, and even media files such as audio clips and video clips. Media files may be added to web feeds as enclosures to the feed. Various news-reporting agencies now use web feeds and allow other web sites to republish their “syndicated” content (e.g., headline or headline plus short summary) feeds. Users of such news web feeds are able to have news “fed” to them, instead of searching for updated content.
There are a number of shortcomings associated with presently known techniques for saving references to content items. One shortcoming is that references to content items are saved locally on a workstation of a given user and are not available to the user when away from the workstation. Similarly, there are currently no mechanisms that allow a user to save a reference to content item that is accessible from a variety of workstations at geographically disparate locations. Also, there are no systems and methods that allow for a user to save a reference to a content item directly from a given content item or browser to a bookmarking and tagging service provider. Also, there are no systems and methods that allow a user to easily search for content items matching certain criteria, where the content items are spread out at many disparate sites. Also, there are no systems and methods that allow a user to easily access web feeds corresponding to updated content items, where the content items are media files.
Thus systems and methods are needed to allow a given user to remotely save references to content items, the references available to the given user from a plurality of geographically disparate workstations. Systems and methods are further needed that allow the given user to remotely save references to content items from within the browser, or from within a given content item, and that allow the user to easily search for content items with certain matching criteria where the content items are spread across a network at many disparate sites. Systems and methods are also needed that allow the user to generate and access web feeds corresponding to updated content items, where the content items are media files.